


I am Shepard

by Resurrect



Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:38:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6732697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resurrect/pseuds/Resurrect
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard sat in quiet contemplation, hands clasped together, back against the wall, knees pulled up to her chest. A tight ball of security at the end of the day was sometimes the only thing that kept Skylar Shepard from losing her cool. <br/>Skylar Shepard. Skylar Shepard. I am Skylar Shepard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I am Shepard

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Sorry if this isn't very good, I don't write much fanfic and I post even less.

Shepard sat in quiet contemplation, hands clasped together, back against the wall, knees pulled up to her chest. A tight ball of security at the end of the day was sometimes the only thing that kept Skylar Shepard from losing her cool. 

These moments of peace had been happening all her life. After she'd left- escaped- Mindoir, her knees had been the only thing keeping her teenage self safe from a world of death and instability. A year in the past, her safety ball gave her time to think. To remind herself that "yes, the reapers ARE real and no, you are NOT crazy, Skylar. Those little visions in your head are from the beacon." The simple days. God, Shepard wouldn't be able to handle anything more complicated than her current situation- if these weren't the complicated days, Skylar was simply screwed.   
Skylar. Skylar Shepard. I am Skylar Shepard.   
It had become her mantra. It wasn't as pretty as a poem, but on the bad days, it did its job and kept her grounded. Shepard sighed and pressed her forehead tighter into her knees, trying to suppress the oncoming headache. She briefly thought about heading down to the med bay, but instantly pushed the idea away. Chakwas already looked at her weird, like she wasn't quite sure what to make of the new-and-improved Shepard. If she knew that even Shepard doubted herself...  
Karen Chakwas was an old friend, but right now, Shepard's old friends were the least helpful and most doubtful. The nice ones tried to not be so blatant about their suspicions of her, though.   
"If I really am 'her'. "  
All at once, her chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself. This body, "her" body, didn't feel right. A loud sob rushed past Shepard's lips before she could catch it. Sloppy wet years pooled at the corners of her eyes but she blinked them away. She'd always been wary of too much crying after Mindoir- it made people more sympathetic towards her, which in turn, made her feel more pathetic. Shepard tugged at the sleeves of her uniform. They were usually rolled up neatly to keep them clean and out of the way while Shepard worked, but now, they served a higher purpose. Skylar had developed an odd habit in the past few months- scratching her arms furiously. It served multiple purposes, aside from turning her ghost white skin to a raw pink. It was a small piece of the new routine that kept Shepard feeling like Shepard. After the Lazarus project, she needed it significantly more than before. It also "broke her in", in a sense. From the second Shepard "woke up", she was instantly aware of the way her body felt. Squeaky clean. She didn't have that scar on the inside of her thigh from that awkward training accident. She didn't have that birthmark on her back, and worst of all, she didn't have it. The small, round symbol of her colony on Mindoir that had been tattooed on near her ankle. She didn't have the battle scars from Akuze either, but that wasn't so bad. Looking at those wasn't a stabilizing experience like scratching her arms, it just reminded of a very bad time. Those absent scars had been quickly replaced, though. It was almost inevitable in Shepard's line of work. It didn't help that for the first week of scratching she hadn't thought to roll down her sleeves to avoid drawing blood or scarring. "Oh well," Skylar thought, "the brand new body was too smooth for my liking anyways. Needed a few dents in it."  
It really didn't help when her crew mates started noticing the marks on her arms. At first they joked, saying it was because Shepard's new hamster really hated her. They eventually grew concerned, and reasonably so. Skylar pushed them away, quite literally. After avoiding Chakwas for weeks, even when Shepard was injured in battle, Garrus confronted her. He questioned the scratches on her arms, and when Shepard started to walk away (while claiming it was "none of your damn business") he grabbed her wrist. She just about shoved him over the railing and into the engine. The skin on her arm was tender, and she was never one for being touched in the first place.   
This lead to her rolling down her sleeves every day, no matter how hot it got. It also lead to her avoiding Garrus, which lead to extreme guilt- toppling over the dominoes of avoiding Tali and Joker and, eventually, everyone on the ship she wasn't obligated to talk to. On missions she only took people who didn't talk much, and who didn't know her before the... Tragic accident. They couldn't ask why she was acting differently because they didn't know her before. They couldn't comment on how her skin was so much paler than it used to be, or how her ribs could be counted through her regs, and especially not how her eyes, the beautiful green eyes that had always been her favorite part of herself, looked like the eyes of a corpse.   
Shepard sighed. She'd never had many problems with confidence in the past- but that was when there was always an adoring rookie to swoon when she entered the room. It was also when she didn't have angry red scars streaked across her pale face. Saying that she had taken a hit to her self esteem was an understatement. Shepard could barely look in the mirror in the morning to pull her hair back into the same neat bun she'd always worn. Maybe it had less to do with her looks and more to do with the "her" aspect.   
It was all Shepard could think about anymore. In theory, it was like any midlife crisis- "who am I?"- but in practice, it was more of a messy, post-life "am I who they say I am?"  
"But really, am I who they say I am?" Shepard whispered to herself, draining any and all humor out of her post-life crisis "joke".   
Alenko sure didn't think so. He made it very clear that he knew so, and that Skylar Shepard was NOT Skylar Shepard- or, at the very minimum, not his Skylar Shepard. For the first few days Shepard spat every time she though of him and cursed him out whenever anyone said his name. And when he sent that self-righteous email- everyone on the ship knew that if Skylar ever saw Kaidan Alenko again, she would drag him through hell for what he'd said to her. It didn't take too long for her anger to die out, though. No one who knew about their relationship expected it to last long. However, it was short lived, even for someone in love. That seemed common for Shepard now a days. Anger never lasted long, which was good, but neither did anything else. Laughter, the occasional bout of embarrassment, and least of all, happiness.   
The only thing the new Skylar Shepard had in surplus was sadness.   
Shepard was ready to launch headfirst into another internal monologue about how she didn't know how human she truly was when she heard a knock on her cabin door.   
Her head snapped towards the sound- by now, everyone knew not to disturb her at this time unless it was urgent. Who would want to interrupt her solemn contemplation and risk the wrath of moody Shepard? She thought on it for a minute, considering ignoring it and pretending to be asleep. Before she even got the chance to properly ignore her guest, the door opened and none other than Joker limped in and slid down the cold metal wall to sit next to her.   
Skylar's brow furrowed. "What are you doing? It's a long way from your station to my room. You could've hurt yourself, and-"  
"Jesus, mom, I get it. I come to try and comfort my friend and I get a lecture? After all these years you should know I'm not fragile like a glass doll. I'm fragile like a porcelain GI Joe." Joker quipped back before Shepard could even finish her rant. She looked back at her feet and mumbled an apology. For a long moment, nothing was said. It wasn't awkward- it was hard to make a situation between two people awkward when they'd been friends for so long, but it definitely wasn't comfortable. Joker didn't seem to know what to say- usually, he and his glass bones were the ones being comforted. So, he said the first semi-reassuring thing he could think of to end the silence. Silence in a situation like this usually meant pity, and he knew from first hand experience that no one like Shepard or himself enjoyed pity.   
"You're Shepard." Joker stated. Shepard gave him a "what, did you just figure that out?" look, so he quickly explained himself. "Shit, I mean- I must sound like an idiot. But, I know you're worried about you not being you, and I just wanted you to know that.. You're you. No doubt about it."   
Shepard snorted. "Yeah, you're right." For a shining second, Joker looked very pleased with himself. "You do sound like an idiot."   
"Oh, ha ha, mock the cripple who came all the way down here to make your mopey ass feel better. Now get your ass upstairs, broody. Jack called bullshit on one of Zaeed's stories and now they're about to get into a fist fight."  
"You want me to stop it?"  
"No, I want you to bet on the outcome wrong so I can make some money." Joker snarked while standing up and hobbling out of the room and into the elevator parallel to the door. Shepard relaxed, knees dropping out of her patent safety position. She clambered up and walked to the elevator as a small grin came over her face. The first genuine smile in a long while, but certainly not the last.  
She could worry and fret later. For now, all the had to do was bet on Jack (the obvious winner) and think up sarcastic comments to throw at Joker.


End file.
